Coronavirus live news: US records world record 77,300 new infections in one day | World news

Returning to the grim news that India has surged past 1 million cases.

Given India’s population of around 1.3 billion, experts say, one million is relatively low – but the number will rise significantly in the coming months as testing increases, further straining a healthcare system already pushed to the brink.

With more than 600 Indians dying daily, lockdowns are being reimposed across the country of 1.4 billion after an easing of restrictions in recent weeks, reports the South China Morning Post.

Now trailing only the United States and Brazil, which have 3.6 million and 2 million infections respectively, the milestone is a deeply concerning one: with almost 1.4 billion people, India’s population is more than double that of the other two countries combined and is squeezed into a smaller land mass.

India imposed the world’s most-expansive lockdown at the end of March when it had recorded just 1,000 cases. But as the economy nosedived, the government eased distancing measures and numbers shot up.

Now the SCMP is reporting that senior members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government have begun telling citizens they must “live with the virus” as they focus on India’s relatively low fatality rate as a marker of success, and try to build capacity to catch sick people early and treat them.

So far, three states – Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu – have accounted for the majority of cases. Authorities imposed fresh lockdowns and designated new containment zones in several states this week, including the largely rural Bihar state in the east and the southern tech hub Bengaluru, where cases have risen.

But as the SCMP reports, in India’s vast countryside, which is much less prepared and with weaker health care, the pandemic is clearly growing.

“The acceleration in cases remains the main challenge for India in the coming days,” Dr Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute told the paper, adding that the vast majority of cases were still being missed.

Dr Kapil Yadav, assistant professor of community medicine at New Delhi’s premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences went further.
The million cases so far recorded likely left out many asymptomatic ones, he told Reuters. “It’s a gross underestimate.”